'Winning comes from understanding your universe of customers'

At the Indian Marketing Awards (IMA) hosted by the exchange4media Group on Tuesday, February 28 in Mumbai, Ashwin Khasgiwala, Group Chief Operations Controller, Reliance Retail delivered the keynote address on the topic ‘Celebrating Choice: Delighting With Experience, Availability & Value.’

He spoke about the success of Reliance brands through the understanding of consumer needs and the future of brand building, listing out the more important things to consider other than just digital.

“As far as building brands of tomorrow, there are certain very important things. Everybody will talk about digital revolution and digital understanding of the customer, digitally reaching to the customers, AI ML etc. But all that everybody does is rely on certain search capabilities of the larger service provider like Google and Meta. What they are providing inherently is the ability to market and everybody plugs into that. But really, we believe that winning comes from your own understanding of your universe of the customer.

Khasgiwala then lists down attributes and certain principles which help in building a brand. He talks about one of a kind product. “Some uniqueness, some kind of left out space, which we are trying to occupy is a very important consideration in making a brand. Just copying something where already there is a big crowd doesn't lead to anything.”

He then speaks about the importance of correct pricing. “There has to be a price proposition. Everybody gets carried away in giving discount discounts but that discount really is a very short-lived one. If somebody else comes and gives a higher discount, people forget about it unless you have a really a good price proposition along with the recall of the product which uniqueness you are bringing in. There is quality definitely at the base of it. Customer will not be fooled by just a fancy brand name or a marketing. They will understand the quality and recall based on the quality what they have experienced. If anything is wrong in quality, definitely it will be very punished by the customer.”

Khasgiwala says even for the established brands, newness is very much required. “Classic example which can be very easily understood is about the cars. The best brands in the world also have to bring in newer models. They cannot continue with the old model even though they'll change something in the shape but it constantly keeps to be moving. Similarly, the products which are in the FMCG or the consumer space, need to be constantly moving. Inherently we don't experience it but the brands are doing it with some kind of a ‘plus’ ‘extra’. So that's important even for very large brands to bring refreshing scenario. Maintaining ethos is extremely important.”

He makes a note of the importance of sustainability in marketing, keeping a good check on supply issues and using the right communication medium. “People have become very conscious about the planet. So, sustainability cannot be forgotten at the base of it. In terms of when we are doing marketing it has to be connected with the stocks. Otherwise, we would have just done a huge amount of marketing and we don't have anything to supply. That money goes off. Really the unit economics in terms of whatever we are selling has a earning. People just spend money but they forget that we are here for making profit and choosing the right medium of communication is extremely important.”

“Definitely using the right agency is extremely important. Maybe vision and concept we give, but giving it to the right people who are doing it all the timing is extremely important. The last thing I just want to pick up is my customer is very important. To asking the customer feedback, understanding the customer's feedback all the time and being close to the customer being open and modify based on what is a relevant comment. Everyone will have comments but really filtering out what matters is extremely important. We are thinking everything for the customer and trying to read to the customer,” he adds.